


Cusp

by Alcyone



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M, Posting here so my friend will get off my back, Written back in 2016 so massively non-canon anymore, ah well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 11:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcyone/pseuds/Alcyone
Summary: Snapshots of growing up in Gotham -or- Bruce Wayne is the best and worst friend ever.





	Cusp

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaniCaranza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaniCaranza/gifts).



Bruce never lied. She was starting to think he didn’t know how.

Sometimes, he tried. But his attempts were so painfully obvious they were funny. Like this one: _I was taking a walk_. A walk around the docks. Right.

“Is your castle too small?” Selina lifted a sardonic eyebrow. Bruce turned pink around the edges.

“It’s not a castle,” came his rebuttal, which did not address her point. Selina smirked, and waited expectantly until she finally broke him down. It did not take long.

“I was looking for information,” he admitted. 

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Selina canted her head. Her hair fell with a whisper of curls to the side. “Why didn’t you come find me?”

“I didn’t feel it prudent,” he said solemnly. He did not look away from her. 

The smirk dropped from Selina’s face. Her stomach turned at the memory. Pressing her lips into an unhappy line, her manner turned aggressive. 

Sometimes, she wished he _would_ lie.

“Fine.” Her voice was acidic. “I know when I’m not welcome.” She began to a walk away. Before she got far, she turned around. “And by the way? Nobody talks like they swallowed a dictionary. If you don’t want people catching on, you might want to change that.”

“Selina, wait!”

Against her better wishes, Selina did. She regarded him coolly. Bruce, for his part, looked apologetic.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” His eyes were a dark blue underneath a knitted brow. “I’d be grateful for the help. It’s just—it seems like every time I come find you, I need you to do something for me. I don’t want you to think that’s the only reason I look for your company.”

Ameliorated, Selina nonetheless lets him stew for a few more seconds before relenting. “Okay. What’s it this time?”

Risky, of course. Dangerous if they got caught. But as that also described the normal day-to-day of Gotham, Selina wasn’t intimidated. She was intrigued, actually. Kids like Bruce didn’t belong in her world. But she had to admit she liked seeing him on her turf. He was okay. Cute. Kind of dumb sometimes, but not entirely stupid.

It was nice to have a friend.

* * *

In his house, on one of many days she let herself in, she found a music box. An elegant thing that could probably fetch her a good price. Selina carried it into the library and wound it up. When she opened the lid, a beautiful couple turned smoothly to the strains of some classical song.

Bruce could probably tell her its name, composer, and some obscure story about how it was written some snowy night in sixteen-hundred-whatever. Selina was more taken with its sweet tune. It reminded her in some ways of the snow globe he gifted her once, which she pointed out when he found her.

Bruce ducked his head. “It’s from Italy so right next door.”

He did that more often, she’d noticed. He was still a terrible liar so he’d found ways around it: not answering questions, changing the subject. Sometimes it wasn’t obvious. Other times, like then, she knew he was hiding something he didn’t want to talk about. She let it, happily distracted with the music box.

“You should keep it,” Bruce said when she was getting ready to leave. Selina laughed.

“Put it over my fireplace?”

“It’s just gathering dust here.” 

Selina grinned when Alfred called out from the other room: “There’s not a speck of dust anywhere in this house!”

Bruce pressed it into her hands. “I want you to have it. It should be with someone who’ll enjoy it.”

It was also worth an easy $600. She suspected that might have played into his decision to let her keep it. She didn’t sell it, though. Didn’t even have it valued properly. (She stole magazines from some hoity-toity shop uptown until she found one similar to hers.) When it got too cold in her place or she had to go to bed hungry or she had a particularly bad day, she would sit against the wall, the music box in her lap and let it lull her. She still had the first thing she’d stolen from Bruce, the little silver snuffbox. She kept both in a corner, safely hidden from sight by a ratty towel.

* * *

Either Bruce was going to get himself killed or Selina was going to kill him herself. This was the second time she found him far away from home and getting into a fight.

It would be one thing if he picked a fight with another stuck up rich kid who usually paid someone to fight for him. But he was getting into fistfights with guys who carried around knives and brass knuckles and worse. Tonight started with her jumping on a guy before he stabbed Bruce in the back. He was easily twice her size, but she had height; getting his head kicked into the ground from more than six feet up will keep anyone down.

Bruce’s cheek was red, and she knew from experience it would turn black not long from then. Blood dripped from his nose and down his lips. It dripped from his knuckles too, split and bruised.

Weeks spent living in the streets with her, supposedly learning fom her, and he learned _nothing_. For a supposedly smart kid, he was really fucking stupid.

“I had it under control,” he insisted when they’d got away. He was a better liar. Good enough to fool that Silver bitch. Almost good enough to sound convincing if she hadn’t seen him get knocked down and then get up anyway after being told to stay down.

Selina punched him in the ribs. 

“You’re an idiot!” she spat. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? And don’t you dare say you’re training,” she threatened, a finger jabbed almost at his face when she saw him open his mouth. “This isn’t training, Bruce. You’re going to _die_ out here one day if you keep on with this. Do you get that? Can that somehow worm its way through your thick Wayne head?”

Her finger jabbed his forehead, pushing his head back. She had to glare up at him; he was taller than her now and getting taller. 

“Thank you for your help, Selina.” His eyes were dark, the blue she knew more black in the poorly lit streets. Not eyes or face or tone, she couldn’t get a read on any of them. She couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic. She assumed the latter.

“’ _Thank you for your help_ ’,” she mocked him. “Oh, shut up. Does your butler even know where you are?”

He didn’t as she suspected. Bruce didn’t have a car as she also suspected. Not trusting him not to pick another fight on the way back, she walked with him the long and familiar road to Wayne Manor. Her anger, which had cooled somewhat along the way, flared up when she saw the extent of the damage under the lights of his house.

She didn’t get it. He had everything. Stuff she couldn’t even _dream_ of having. And he still preferred getting beaten up on the street. She helped him again, though. She helped him with the injuries he couldn’t reach himself, and kept everything quiet so as not to wake up Jeeves wherever he slept. Did he even sleep? Questions for another day.

Bruce regained a sense of humor, and they talked for a while. Not about anything important. Certainly not about what had happened that night. When morning came, Selina was surprised to find she’d slept over. Bruce slept beside her. In the morning light, his bruises looked worse.

He didn’t stop fighting. He got better, and more secretive, but she knew. And she found herself spending more and more nights under Bruce’s creaky old roof than in her drafty, hard place.

* * *

The first time they got drunk, it was Bruce’s idea. Even Selina was surprised. He disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with an old bottle. Bruce handed it to her.

The only word on the tag that she could pronounce was the year.

“What language is this?” she asked. “French?”

“Yes. It was bottled in Côte de Nuits.” Bruce pronounced the name like he was native. Or she assumed he did. She would never be able to say it so smoothly. “It’s part of Burgundy in France.”

By the next hour, they were holed up in Bruce’s bedroom on their second bottle, and everything was funny. Selina felt her head all fuzzy, she had a happy buzz going, and she had abandoned long ago trying to sit up straight. She lay on a rug in his room, laughing so much she felt tears painting streaks across her cheeks. Bruce was trying to stand up. He succeeded in pulling down the bedside table. Selina spilled some of her wine. Between snickers, she mourned the wasted red liquid.

“You ever been to—Cottinwee?”

“Côte de Nuits.” Selina sent him a skeptical look that even drunk he could correct her pronunciation. Bruce, the jerk, did not take notice. “No, I haven’t. I’ve visited France often, but not that region. My father did.”

Selina blinked. By then, she had known Bruce for a few years. In that time, she could count on one hand the amount of times he brought up his parents willingly. She thought about sitting up, but the wine had made her body heavy. A finger skimmed the rim of her glass.

“Why don’t you leave?” she blurted out. 

Bruce paused, his glass almost to his lips. In the artificial light, his eyes were very blue. 

“It’s my room.” His tone was so dry it took Selina a moment to realize he was joking. “Why are you here?”

“I’m serious.” She struggled to sit up. The world seemed to tilt dramatically. “Whoa.”

“Careful.” There was a laugh on his lips. Bruce grabbed her by the arm. Selina became all too aware of the heat of his palm.

“No.” The wine had gone to her head. She sounded whiny to her own ears as she shoved his hand off her. Selina saw him blink through the light haze of alcohol.

“I mean it,” she insisted. “You’re Bruce Wayne. You own—everything.” She flapped a hand randomly toward the room. “You can go anywhere. Why are you staying here?”

He was quiet so long Selina thought he had not heard her. When she started to repeat her question, he spoke.

“I can’t.” He was not looking at her anymore. Seated on the floor, his back to polished chest of drawers more expensive than a month’s food salary, she was sure, Bruce stared at a point on the floor only he could see.

“This was my parents’ home. This is my home. I’m not leaving it to the criminals. I’m going to show them the city doesn’t belong to them.”

His eyes locked with hers. Something about the look in his eyes disconcerted her. She did not want to see it anymore. Neither could she look away. She was captivated as he finished, low and certain.

“I’m going to break them.”

Her response came immediately. “You’re crazy.”

“This is the clearest I’ve been.” 

What he was saying was fucking crazy, but Bruce himself… Bruce looked perfectly aware. In control. Sane.

That’s how Selina knew he was _in_ sane.

She wasn’t sure who kissed who ( _whom,_ a voice not unlike Bruce’s corrected her, and suddenly she was pissed that not only was he in her head, but he was also correcting her _grammar_.) But she was pressing herself against him with ragged need. She was too drunk for such a serious conversation, and his strange intensity was unnerving. To her relief, Bruce reciprocated with equal fervor. Selina felt herself grow lightheaded.

He tasted like wine.

* * *

She was seventeen when she was caught again. Selina sat in a dingy holding cell inside the GCPD. Gordon wouldn’t get her out. No one else had reason to care. All because she stole a few necklaces. And rings. And half a thousand in cash. In her defense, though, she didn’t know about the money. That was just the amount sitting inside the car she took in order to make good her escape. A combination of a manual transmission and wet roads unfortunately put an end to her, until then, perfect exit.

They would have got their car back. Not like anyone can find parking in Gotham, anyway. Try explaining that to one of Gotham’s Shittiest, though.

“Hey!” One of them obnoxiously chewed gum while he opened the cell door. “Selina Kyle. Charges were dropped. You’re out of here.”

Selina’s eyebrows crept upwards into her bangs. “Seriously? Why?”

“How should I know? Just hurry up. I don’t got all day.”

Tempted as she was to make his life a little more difficult, Selina knew when not to. This was the first time she had ever had charges dropped against her so she had no idea of the protocol. While she was getting her belongings back, she asked if the owner had done it. Gummy explained only the DA’s office could before promptly kicking her out. 

Back on the streets, Selina took a moment to reflect on her luck. Except it couldn’t be luck. Nobody in the DA’s office would give a crap about a homeless teenager. She did not even know anyone there. No, there was only one person who could have.

Half an hour later found her breaking into Wayne Manor for the seventy-second time probably. Bruce sat on the couch, his back to the doors. His head turned with the sound.

“There’s a front door, you know.” The smile in his voice prompted one of her own.

“There’s also a perfectly _serviceable_ one right here.” She was smirking as she came around and dropped into the couch opposite his. A tray with food sat in front of him: lunch, obviously. Snagging a bite for herself, she tipped her head at him. “How’d you know?”

“What do you mean?” He really was too good a liar. The little boy who would turn pink whenever he tried was long gone. Selina did not understand why the thought felt so sad.

“You know what I mean. How’d you get the DA to let it go?”

Bruce made a moue. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah?” Reaching over, she snagged the remains of the bread and tossed it at him. Bruce snatched it out of the air. “What’s it mean when the last good kid in Gotham is bribing the police?”

“Probably that we’re all fucked.”

She laughed in surprise. “If you won’t tell me the truth, then tell me a better lie.”

“I do not love you.”

Her smile vanished. Bruce was studying her. He was not surprised to have blurted out—that thing he just blurted out. He was… This had been planned. For how long, she had no way of knowing. He _meant_ it.

Before she was aware of it, she was sitting up, head shaking, her curls sent into a tizzy around her head.

“No, you don’t.”

“Selina, I— ”

“No, you _don’t_!” Selina was on her feet, furious beyond description, and with no real reason why. Only he didn’t get to say shit like that. He didn’t get to— She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. When she opened them again, her expression was hard.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but when we hang out? It’s just for fun. Hear that? It’s nothing.”

Bruce got up slowly, no less angry, and a naked hurt reflected on his expression. Selina hated him for it, but not nearly as much as for what he said next.

“Then why are you here? Why do you keep coming back?” He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Bruce had a skill when talking that meant everyone around him shut up and listened. His eyes were a cold, cold blue. 

“Is it useful to have someone around who’ll pay off your mistakes?”

As if she had been slapped, Selina went rigid with fury. 

“Fuck you, rich boy,” she hissed.

She slammed the glass door, hard, on her way out. He did not call her back and she did not turn to look.

* * *

The leaves were beginning to turn, and Bruce was gone. That’s what Alfred told her when he found her in the study. “Gone abroad.” To sail or study or whatever rich kids did as soon as they were of age. “He left you this, in case you stopped by.”

The letter remained unopened when she threw it into the fire that night. She watched the edges darken and begin to curl. When she had an abrupt change of mind and tried to fish it out, it was too damn late. The corners of it crumbled in her hands. The rest was blackened and impossible to read but for the signature, safe for having been at the center.

_Thank you,_

_Bruce._

For weeks, she was furious at him. For leaving. For not telling her. For writing a stupid letter. For thanking her. _Why_ , she wanted to know. What could he possibly want to thank her for? _Thanks for keeping me entertained until I decided to leave?_ She decided to throw the remains into the river. See how much she cared.

She kept the worthless, ruined piece of paper.

* * *

“Hey! You have to pay for that!” the vendor barked. Selina’s lip curled.

“I’m looking for something.”

“You can look after you pay!”

“Fine.” Selina closed the newspaper and laid it on the pile. Hidden by the action, she slipped the second out, and walked away, the paper folded and pressed against her coat.

The afternoon news picked it up. After eight years abroad, Bruce Wayne had returned to Gotham. There were shots of him in the airport, wearing black shades and a smile she could recognize a mile off as fake. The anchors discussed what this could mean for Wayne Enterprises; talk of stocks and management was quickly superseded by gossip.

She clicked the television off.

A few days later, Selina climbed out of a cab and looked up at the house far too big for two men. As a child, she would make this trip on foot. But the days of such need were long gone. A tinge of nostalgia hit her, which she quickly brushed away. Sentimentality was for dead fools; Selina was neither.

She did not bother with the front door. She clearly remembered nights sneaking in through billowing gossamer curtains. Like then, the doors were unlocked. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she pulled it open. A stupid billionaire. Even the people without two cents to rub together knew to lock the damn doors.

The study was empty. The wall of pictures and data that had remained up for so long was cleared. A painting took up the space. Pushing her sunglasses on top of her head, she approached. A wooded landscape, dark. When she squinted, she thought she could make out a figure in the very center of the painting, wreathed in shadow.

“There’s a door, you know.”

Selina startled. Standing near the doors, Bruce studied her unsmiling. Like before, he was in dark slacks paired with a button down shirt under a sweater. But that was where the similarities ended. He looked like had grown six more inches while he was gone. He had grown broad in the shoulders, too, and if what she could see of his arms was any indication, they were thick and strong. Everything about him evoked _big_.

And he did not seem pleased to see her.

Selina lifted pointed eyebrow. “You could share food, you know.”

“Only child,” he returned. “Never learned how.”

The standoff lingered a few more seconds before Bruce relented. The corner of his mouth rose in that stupid lopsided smile of his, and Selina was lost.

After then, it was as if no time had passed. They stayed in the study, swapping stories, and eating from the tray Alfred brought them. Selina surprised them both by hugging Alfred when he set the tray down.

Night fell around them, and still they talked. Selina had taken off her heels and lifted her feet onto the couch. Bruce pulled them into his lap and massaged them. At one point, he put on music. They danced until they were both dizzy and inebriated on the night. Selina, at least, had a pleasant buzz going. Bruce had drunk as much as he did, she was sure, yet he seemed perfectly sober.

They didn’t get to the bedroom. Lying in front of the fire, Selina traced the lines of the muscles on his back. They jumped and slid under his skin as he stoked the fire higher. Her earlier estimation had been off the mark. He wasn’t only big; he looked like he had been carved from marble. She teased him that he looked like a sculpture in a museum. It earned her a sly smile.

“I can do a lot more than they can,” he muttered against her collarbone.

She awoke in the morning wrapped in blankets in front of a dead fire. A change of clothes had been left on the couch for her: some of Bruce’s old things. Her own clothes were missing. No doubt, she thought with an amused twist of her mouth, being laundered and pressed right that moment.

It was an intense and intimate weekend and the start of the easiest relationship Selina had ever had. They were a comfortable fit. Selina didn’t feel the need to label their relationship, nor did Bruce ever try to bring up the subject. They planned for the present, didn’t worry about the future, and forgot the past. 

He was kept plenty busy with the company, and there were times when he disappeared with little more than a message: _Sorry, I can’t tonight._ Selina tried not to let it bother her. There were several subjects they had silently agreed never to touch. His business was one of them. In return, he didn’t ask her where she got her money, and she didn’t have to lie.

Still she noticed that even when they were together, he was often distant. Bruce was never anything less than courteous. Even when he was teasing, he was never cutting like she could be. Yet sometimes when he was with her, it didn’t _feel_ like he was there with her. It was beginning to get on her last nerve. When she addressed it, he seemed oblivious. So she took her own passive-aggressive revenge. Spent more time alone. Turned down invitations. It was good for her anyway. As much as she liked him (and she did, a lot more than _she_ was comfortable with), the man liked to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. That had never changed. When it got exhausting, she would text him back no, and toss the phone on the bedside table with her music box.

It was during one of those nights, sleepless and clicking idly through the channels, that she came upon the news. Drug traffickers found badly beaten and tied up at the docks. They all claimed to have been attacked by a giant bat. Selina snorted and switched to a movie. Had they run out of credible stories already?

But there were more news as the weeks passed. More arrests. Drug traffickers weren’t the only victims. Pimps weren’t having a good time either. Speakeasies had been raided. A cop was found strung up by his ankle. He had to wait for other cops to show up to cut him down; everyone who passed by had laughed. Those few with cameras had taken pictures and sold them. Selina bought one. She dug the picture out of her drawer each time she needed a laugh.

The Batman dominated every headline. People swore to seeing him. Some claimed he was an actual bat. Others that he drank blood. Still others that he could actually fly. She spent an afternoon at Bruce’s laughing at the madness that had gripped Gotham. The city was always crazy, but it had really lost it now. Going on and on as it had about some jackass in a costume.

“I think you should sue,” she said, lounging on the bed while Bruce massaged her legs and feet. “He definitely stole your idea. In fact,” she sat up, putting her face close to his, “what if you’re the Batman?”

Bruce chuckled. “I think you’d be the first to know if I was playing dress up every night.”

And week by week, the seed grew. The little television in her littler apartment was turned to the news once again. The Batman wasn’t going after stooges anymore. The commissioner had been found at a crime scene. Word on the street was a reward that had been in the thousands for his head had climbed into the hundreds of thousands, then broke a million. The bad guys were scared, the police incompetent, and the people delighted. 

Selina kept half an eye on the television and half on the magazine in her lap. The news segment changed: a jewelry unveiling in the city, beautiful artifacts as old as they were priceless. A necklace caught her eye—ropes of diamonds and white gold.

The seed bloomed.

_If the Bat can…_

* * *

The security was formidable—if the thief wasn’t her. As a child, she could sneak past alarms without setting them off. Sneaking into the Penguin’s private study was as easy as taking candy from the proverbial baby.

Again, she had returned to her old habits of head to toe black. The difference: her current clothes provided a snug fit. A black bodysuit paired with the toughest black boots her light fingers could lift. The goggles sitting atop her mask were altered jeweler’s magnifying glasses. _The better to ascertain your value, my dear._

The gloves were her pride and joy. Black leather, each finger tipped with a sharpened diamond nail. They couldn’t just take out eyes; she could scratch off an entire face with them if she wanted to. 

She knelt in front of the safe, listening to the click of the tumblers as they fell until a soft shudder went through the iron door. Smirking, she turned the handle. Inside were ledgers. Some jewelry. Several thousands in bills. With this robbery, everyone in Gotham would know there was another player in town. She thumbed through the bills.

She wasn’t alone.

When he shifted, the moonlight streaming through the windows threw his shadow against the wall: an imposing bat, its wings tucked against its body. The black voice seemed to rumble from the depths.

“Put it back.”

Selina smiled.

“You didn’t say please.”


End file.
